On October 27, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that Dwayne Dobbins should not be on the November ballot as the Democratic nominee for state rep, district. Dobbins v Arkansas Democratic Party, 08-1225. The Court did not reach the merits, but said he had waited too long to complaint, and that he should have objected within 20 days after the party ruled against him. He filed his lawsuit on October 10. Here is the 5-page decision.

This news means that the Green Party nominee, Richard Carroll, is the only name on the ballot, although two write-in candidates are running against him.

California election law requires candidates for partisan public office, or for party office, to have been registered members of their own party for at least three months, before they file in their own party’s primary. Also they must not have been a member of any other qualified party for the preceding year.

In this year’s June primary for party office, some candidates for Republican County Central Committee were placed on the ballot, even though they did not meet the prior affiliation requirement. They were elected. Now, the chair of the Alameda County Republican Central Committee is trying to get them removed. The case was filed July 25, 2008 and is Cummings v Stanley, Alameda County Superior Court, no. 08-400144. Here is a San Francisco Chronicle story about the case. A hearing will be held November 12.

Generally, when candidates who were elected were then charged with having been placed on the ballot improperly, courts hold that the matter is moot. On the other hand, there have been instances when an initiative passed, and was then held to have been placed on the ballot improperly, and sometimes courts have then invalidated the initiative.

A U.S. District Court in Philadelphia will hold an evidentiary hearing on October 28, at 1 p.m, in NAACP v Cortes, no. 08-cv-5048. This is the case filed October 23 that seeks to compel elections officials to provide emergency paper ballots in precincts, if half or more of the electronic vote-counting machines in that precinct break down. Current policy is that precincts will not be supplied with emergency paper ballots until all the machines break down.